For You I'd Bleed Myself Dry
by CloudyDream
Summary: "And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." Post 2x22. Klaus asked for Stefan, but got Damon instead. A story of blood and death and despair, and falling from grace.


_**For You I'd Bleed Myself Dry**_

* * *

**_x_**

"Just like that," Klaus tells him, red-mouthed and absolutely fucking _glorious_; and there's pride in his voice, and Damon thinks that he never had anyone being proud of him before.

And now there he is, this thousand-years old Original who's got enough blood on his hands to make Damon look innocent like a choir boy by comparison; and he's telling how good he's done, and the worst part is that some part of him doesn't completely mind Klaus's attention.

Okay, that's a lie. He needs it, likes it, _craves_ it.

_This is so fucked up_.

**_ii_**

Ten years are nothing but an heartbeat.

A passing phase; a meaningless hinder in the grand scheme of things; the blink of an eye. Even to humans ten years isn't that much; a big chunk of life, for sure, but nothing overly major. To him, it shouldn't even matter. What the hell is a stupid decade when you have forever?

Damon's lost decades before. Hell, he's lost a whole half-century, drunk it away in self-pity and misery and meaningless death; another few more years won't change things much.

That's what he tells himself, anyway. Unfortunately, Klaus agrees.

"And why would I want to do that?" he says, contempt dripping from his every word; and the worst part is, he's right.

"Stefan's a brute," Damon hears himself say, and he likes to think he actually sounds convincing. "Lacks finesse, doesn't know when to stop. It'll be two, three years tops before he gets himself killed."

"True," the other says. "But Stefan and I have a… history."

And the way it says it, _history_, makes it sound so much more menacing than that word has any right to be.

"Please, like I believe you." Damon scoffs, because that's what he does better: riling up people who can kill him. Still, it's worked pretty well so far.

"What about this," he hears himself say, and can almost picture what Elena would say if she were here. Shut up, you idiot; but she's not, and never will be again. "Stefan's more emphatic than Charles fucking Xavier. I go with you, I feel bad about it; he'll feel even worse. Everybody's miserable, you win."

Stefan doesn't seem to listen in all this, sitting down at the counter with what must be easily half a dozen blood bags in front of him; red stains on his clothes, his hands, his mouth. Klaus makes his way to Damon slowly, smiling, and he can feel himself shiver.

Then he lashes out, so fast that even Damon doesn't see him; and before he knows it he's kneeling on the floor, a wooden stake in his stomach. It fucking _hurts_.

"Shut up," Klaus says, and he does.

For a while, at least.

"I used to hunt with Stefan, you know," he begins, twisting that damned stake around before he finally takes it out; with the same voice one might use to talk about the weather. "In the Twenties," he adds, and _winks_; and just like that Damon knows that he's stepped into _something_, and everything's just gotten a whole deal harder.

Stefan liked to walk around ripping people's heads off in the Twenties, and it took him three more decades and Lexi to snap out of it. They don't have a Lexi now; Damon himself made sure of it.

"Twenty years," he offers, blood coming out of his mouth, and feels like he's haggling over some stupid trinket at a street market. It's almost funny, in a way, and there's a laugh halfway out of his mouth before he can control himself.

Klaus smiles.

**_xi_**

Damon doesn't stop, and she hates it.

Oh, she hides it well. Every time he comes up with the topic she distract him – be it with sex, or blood, or booze. They get drunk as much as they possibly can and drain half a dozen bodies dry, and when they go to sleep he's so exhausted that maybe she thinks he won't notice her cry.

But he notices; he _always_ does. It's like his own personal fucking course.

"I love you," he tells her one time, just to fuck with her head, really; because he doesn't. _He doesn't_.

She looks panicked in the moonlight, and it's so worth it; even when she almost kills him five seconds later.

"Well," she says, her breath hot on his neck. "I don't."

"Figures." Damon sits on the bed, letting the sheet roll out of him. "I'm sorta used to it." In that moment he wishes he were human, just to have a real excuse to smoke a cigarette after sex. Feels fitting, somehow.

"You should go to him," he tells her; and, this time, she doesn't make him stop. "You should go to him and tell him that you love him, and how much you missed him."

She's beautiful in the light of the moon; but then again, she always is.

"You should go to Stefan and tell him that you love him, and look him straight in the eyes." Damon leans in closer, almost kissing; but not really. _Almost touch_, he remembers a voice from a lifetime ago. "So you won't lose the special moment when he looks at you like you're dirt and tells you to fuck off."

Rebekah flinches and he lets out a brief, cruel laugh. _That's what I do_, he tells himself. _I lash out_.  
And she's staring at him with clear, unblinking eyes; and he tries his hardest to remember what it was like not to care.

"And then he'll go away to live his perfect human life with his human girlfriend, pretending like he's not one of us. Because that's what he does." He stands up and looks for something to put on; and she still doesn't moved.

"But you know what," Damon continues, and he _so_ hopes she appreciates this, because it's one of his favorite arguments, the one he repeats to himself before going to sleep at night. Sometimes it even works.

"In ten, twenty years he's going to wake up one morning and remember that he's not human, no matter how hard he tries, and you'll be there watching. That'll make you even."

He honestly cannot remember the last time Rebekah was so still, or went so long without saying a word, and feels guilty; and hates that he does. She's just staying there, her face an expressionless mask, and Damon can't help but think that she looked so much better when he told her that he loved her some ten minutes ago.

_Whatever_, he thinks, making for the door. _Whatever_.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," he shrugs. "Life ain't fair, and all that."

"You must really hate him," she tells him, slowly. Damon doesn't bother to turn his head but pictures her, a beautiful wax statue laying between his sheets.

"Oh, but I don't." He's halfway through the door when he answers, and glad she can't see his face. "I tried to, but I really can't."

"I'm here now, am I?"

Damon slams the door shut before Rebekah can say anything else, and goes look for Klaus.

He feels like killing someone tonight.

**_v_**

Klaus keeps his family in coffins, which has a sort of morbid tenderness to it. _And of course he would_. Damon is amazed he hasn't thought about it before; but then again, he had other things on his mind.

He gets to see Klaus put Elijah in his own coffin, and wonders just how long he's had it, ready for that very moment, to put his brother's corpse in it. God knows that Damon really should judge other people's family issues, not even Klaus's; but still, his own relationship with Stefan feels perfectly healthy compared to this one.

Damon banishes his thoughts of Stefan as soon as he realizes that he's doing it, furious at himself. No more Stefan, he tells himself, who's gone off into the sunset with Elena. No more Elena even; no more pining at all.

He makes a promises to himself, then wonders how long he's going to last.

They fly out from Virginia to LAX, which Damon has always hated even more than he hates the city himself; and Klaus has his honestly predictable fairly share of mysterious meetings with shady people in seedy places Damon wouldn't return twice to.

He must be meeting with witches, Damon realizes, to break some other curse or spell he's got on him; lovely as he his, Klaus surely must have done a lot of friends over the years. That, or maybe even humans, whoever's handling Klaus's supposedly huge fortune.

Still, Damon truly doesn't care, and he never finds out. There are no introduction, no hand-shakes, nothing at all; and the closest he actually comes to a real conversation is when a drunk, muscled, red-haired associate of Klaus's – has to be a witch, can't be a lawyer looking like_ that_ – give him a blank look and ask Klaus, _who the hell is this?_

Klaus only smirks at that, but Damon gives out a full-hearted laugh.

"Just the new henchman," he says, and it's so fucking _hilarious_, the best joke in the world.

**_i_**

In the beginning, it went something like this:

"It's okay to love them both," Katherine said, and it sounded so fucking _funny_ he might have just laughed there and then, if he hadn't been so desperate.

"Wait," he called; and, miraculously, she did.

"I need to know where Klaus is," Damon told her, and Katherine smiled a bitter, mirthless smile.

"What is it, with you two?" she asked, but it wasn't really a question and he didn't bother to answer, holding her gaze. She must have read something in it, anger and guilt and sheer despair; and she must have liked it too.

"You never really changed, you know," she mused, and somehow managed to look like she actually _cared_. She almost sounded wistful, regretful even, and Damon couldn't remember ever seeing Katherine looking so _human_. Even more than Elena did at the moment, petrified as she was in her corner of the room, her eyes darting between the both of them, so full of hope Damon couldn't even stand looking at her.

He turned his head instead, back towards Katherine. _The devil you know, and all that_.

"You love so fucking much," Katherine said, sounding almost angry, and he winced. He'd never heard her swear before, silly as it sounded. Katherine Pierce killed and betrayed, but she always looked fancy doing it, and it was the profanity that shook him the most of all.

"I need to find Klaus," Damon repeated, and she sighed.

"Of course you do."

Elena's eyes were two black holes, empty and soulless and drawing him in. He couldn't look away now, no matter how much he wanted it; but then something _clicked _between them and she knew, and he knew that she knew.

"You don't have to," Elena said, which had to be the biggest, fattest lie she'd ever said in her life. If she'd said _I don't want you to_ it would've been an even bigger one, and Damon's glad she spared him that humiliation. He was always the bad guy, after all; the one you need but don't miss when he's gone.

He didn't bother to answer; smiled at her, for the last time.

"Klaus," he said to Katherine, once again.

This time she told him, and he went.

**_vi_**

They are up thirty thousand feet when he asks.

"Ever thought of turning it off?" Klaus asks lazily one day, and Damon flinches; because _of course_ he has.

Doesn't mean that he wants to. Maybe Rose was right, maybe she wasn't; but, either ways, he's done cheating. "That would be boring," he says, giving out a practiced grin.

Klaus actually smiles back at that, that sardonic half-smile of his; and not for the first time Damon finds himself wondering what his deal is in all this. He thinks about it often, trying to figure out whether Klaus's enjoying Damon's full collaboration or he's hoping for some sort of rebellion; if he's indulging Damon's pretense that everything's alright; if he's realized, like Damon himself did, that they do actually have things in common, could've even gotten along under different circumstances.

If he, too, hates himself for it.

He's had so much time to think about it lately, because there doesn't seem to be much he's required to do. They're always travelling, moving from some place to another; where Klaus tries to make more hybrids who regularly die. It's getting boring even –the last time something actually happened was when Damon complained to Klaus of how dull everything was, saying he would rather stake himself than enduring more than a year of it.

That day ended up with a brutal fight, which was what Damon was aiming for in the first place. At least violence was never boring

"And you will never turn it off again, no matter what you do?" Klaus continues, and Damon finds himself blinking, going back to the conversation with a start.

"Right." Do the Originals have a switch, he finds himself wondering. _And does it still work?_ "What's with the twenty questions?"

Another flippant smile. He's not trying to provoke Klaus into killing him, no matter what the other man thinks. Insolence is, Damon had decided early on, his particular brand of revenge.

"What, you jealous? Do you even _have_ a switch?"

Klaus snorts. "Hardly."

"So?"

"We're landing in one hour." Klaus says, and Damon frowns.

"I know that." They're on a commercial flight from Phoenix to Chicago, going there for some reason Klaus didn't bother to explain and Damon hadn't wanted to ask. Truth be told, he was surprised – had expected someone like Klaus to have his own plane, but whatever.

"You complain that you are bored," Klaus tells him, and Damon snorts.

"Because I am."

"We are landing in one hour," he continues, unmoved. "There are two hundred and three passengers on this plane. In one year, they are all going to be dead."

Damon feels his eyebrows raise to his hairline. "Are they?"

Klaus nods. "They are."

"It's nice of you to worry about keeping me entertained," he pauses. "Or is this for the police's benefit?" Or the FBI. Or whoever handles _mysterious deaths of people who took the same plane_ – Damon's pretty sure they made a movie about this, once. A horror one, but without vampires in it. Still, seems only legit. Klaus doesn't have Ripper Stefan to keep him entertained after all; he's going to have to settle for Damon, and movies' plots.

Klaus is looking at him, saying nothing, doing nothing. It's a good five minutes before he speaks again, five minutes of one of the most intense staring contests Damon's ever been in.

"You are going to do it," he says, and it's not a question.

"Yeah," Damon answers, as if they were talking about grocery shopping rather than a couple-hundreds names long hit list.

And he is going to, not because Klaus will go back to Mystic Falls and kill everyone if he doesn't; or not just because of that at any rate. He's going to do that because, before Klaus, he hadn't killed in forever. Because it feels good not to be judged for once. Because he tried the good guy route once and didn't fucking work, so what else's left to him now?

Some days he can barely look himself in the mirror.

Some other days he does it, and likes what he sees.

They land in Chicago forty-five minutes later and Damon sees Rebekah for the first time, even though she'd been with them all along. Still, it's in Chicago that Damon meets Rebekah, and that's yet another nail on his coffin.

At this point, he doesn't even mind.

**_iii_**

Klaus smiles.

"And what makes you think your offer's good enough?" he asks, and Damon's glad because the answer's easy.

"Whatever Stefan can do," he says, "I can do better."

_Fun things: it's true_.

Klaus keeps walking around, circling him, weighing him with a single look; and Damon has to control himself not to show how much he's unnerving him. He takes a breath even though he doesn't really need to, to calm down, and ignores Klaus's answering grin as much as he can.

He's standing in the middle of that fucking room, keeping himself straight and looking straight ahead; and he's thinking, _pick me, pick me_. Damon considers himself a truly modern man, as ironic as that sounded, and as open-minded as they come; but he was still born the son of a plantation owner in Antebellum Virginia, and gone enough times to the slave market back in the days to recognize that particular look in Klaus's eyes.

Once upon a time, he'd seen it in his father's, too.

"Prove it," he says; and just like that Damon knows that the game is on.

**_viii_**

"You should go back to him, if you miss him so fucking much," he tells Rebekah, and doesn't care how venomous he sound. He's Damon Salvatore, he lashes out whenever he feels like it, whenever anything or anyone gets too uncomfortably close to stuff he doesn't want to talk about. It's all there in the instruction manual, somewhere.

"There's no need to be such a _dick_ about it," she answers, and the emphasis she puts on the word with that accent of her is enough to make him laughs, and she has him pinned to the wall in a heartbeat after that.

"Do you think I'm funny?" Rebekah says, one hand tight against his neck. Damon doesn't mind overly much – doesn't really need to breathe, after all – but he hates how chocked his voice sound.

"I think you're hot," he tells her, completely honest. "And sexy as hell, and dangerous, and everything. But seriously, darling, you really shouldn't say _dick_ anymore."

He smirks, but he's running out of oxygen. "Because _that_'s funny."

She grins and kisses him and he kisses back, because she's hot and sexy as hell and _there_; and continuing this thing has only gotten more and more interesting since that day Klaus spilled over the beans, whatever he meant to accomplish with that. Crushing Damon's already scarce self-esteem, probably; he sure couldn't have expected they'd stop fucking, right? Eternal love was all good, but libido was another.

Whatever.

Afterwards he's calmer, but still bitter.

"Seriously, Rebekah –" he briefly feels about to call her _sweetheart_, or _love_, and shivers in disgust at how much Klaus's rubbing on him. "You want him, you go get him. Trust me, I know how's done; go there and see what happens."

She doesn't answer and they have another go at it, rougher this time, and there's blood on the sheets when they're done. "We should go out," she tells him then, and they go.

Still, Damon doesn't stop.

**_iv _**

"Prove it," he says; and it's not quite three minutes later that Damon's back into the apartment with his first victim.

He picked a man, because all the women he saw reminded him of Elena somehow, and he picked the first one he'd laid eyes on, because he was in a hurry. It would've been better, maybe, if he'd gone out of his way to choose an old alcoholic, or someone terminally ill, or even some homeless man no one would miss; but no one's here to judge him tonight and Damon himself couldn't care less.

He's signing his soul over to the devil after all, or whatever's left of it; and knowing Klaus he probably has a taste for killing thirty-something family men and young girl on the eve of their wedding. He's got to start being a villain again, better start tonight.

The man's not unconscious, but he doesn't scream.

"He won't talk," Damon says. "But he'll feel the pain."

Which is a lie, but one Klaus has no way to prove. The man's been compelled out of his pain and wouldn't scream much even if he could, but he fear in his eyes is genuine and Damon can see Klaus getting fucking _high_ on it. _Figures he would_.

"What do you want me to do?" he asks, and Klaus lets out a theatrical sigh.

"And here I thought you would be more imaginative."

"And here I thought you were calling the shots, boss." Damon gives out an eye-roll that's just as melodramatic and get staked again for his troubles.

"You shouldn't test my patience," he tells him, and Damon lets out a laugh that doesn't sound forced at all.

"It's all part of my master plan," he says. "Convincing you that I'm the fun brother, and all that."

It's been a while since he's done any flaying and he does it now, figuring he's gonna make a big enough mess of things to satisfy even Klaus's wildest dreams. Damon goes for the biggest knife in Alaric's kitchen, blade large and squared and fairly blunt, the one he's sure Ric uses for cutting bread. Or used to anyways; there's no way he's going to use it again now, even if he ever gets his loft back.

It _is_ fairly messy, all in all. Compelled or not the man's completely conscious, and wasn't the kind to sit still while Damon stripped off large chunks of his skin with a bread knife. He hadn't been tied up either, to put on a better show, and eventually Damon ends up wresting him on the kitchen floor, pinning him down to finish the work, and there's so much blood when he's done that he's fucking drenched in it.

"That's alright with you?" he asks flippantly when the man's finally dead, never mind that he's feeling a bit nauseous. Klaus even looks vaguely interested, which Damon decides it has to mean he's impressed. Stefan, on the other hand… Fuck, Damon'd forgotten all about Stefan.

His brother's sitting exactly where he'd seen him last, still at that very chair, still looking catatonic; and Damon feels so stupidly glad he was too high on 0 positive or whatever to actually pay attention to what he'd been doing. Or_ maybe_ he had seen, couldn't deal with it, and that was why he'd shut down?

His thoughts are interrupted by Klaus's voice.

"Thirty years," he says, and Damon puts on his best insulted look.

"That's practically like saying that Stefan's worth three times me," he tells Klaus. "Twenty five." There's a certain poetry to it, Damon decides, quarter-century and everything. _A silver wedding_.

"You really shouldn't make too many demands, Damon." Klaus moves and suddenly he's right in front of him, a mere couple of inches from his face. His slow smile is full of teeth and Damon's suddenly reminded of how those teeth had felt on skin, and the pain and delirium that'd come with them. He shivers.

"Twenty five," he repeats. "And I won't even _dream_ of leaving."

And in that moment, he means it. He's right on the edge of a chasms so deep, if he falls chances are he's going to fall forever.

So Damon does the only thing he can think of.  
He jumps.

"Of course you won't." Klaus says, matter-of-factly. "We'll have so much fun, you'll _never_ want to leave."

And it's done, just like that. Deal with the devil, indeed. Damon stands still and watches as Klaus makes his way to the counter, to Stefan, and takes his brother's head in his hands.

"Off you go, Stefan," Klaus says. "Have a fun life."

**_vii_**

Rebekah's beautiful and wild and an eternal child, so unlike Elena's serious, pensive look that Damon decides he wants her for the first time after only two minutes of knowing her, just for being so different. Plus, she's Klaus's sister. Chances are he might cause a rift between them, and Damon's all for some sane sibling hatred.

There's something wrong with her too, something she's not saying, but he does his best not to care. It doesn't work – Rebekah reminds him so much of himself before Mystic Falls that he has to do something, so one night he takes her out for drinks.

"Whoever he is," he tells her. "He's not fucking worth it."

Even Damon is not deluded enough to believe he's only talking about Rebekah.

"If he loves you, he'll wait," Sage's words come out of his mouth, but he doesn't like to think about that. Remembers well enough how _that_ ended, the last time. "If he doesn't, his loss."

She kisses him then, hard enough to draw blood; but his lips are bloodied most of the times these days, and she tastes like cigarettes and whiskey, the taste of decadence. Rebekah fits nicely in his arms, Damon decides, maybe not so perfectly as Elena would've, but that way lies madness, and they're both going to hell anyway.

Her nails dig into his skin and it hurts, but he doesn't mind. She's mercurial, Damon thinks; a stupid word to define a woman if he's even heard one, but it's the truth – she's almost fluid in her enthusiasm, everywhere at once, and far warmer than a dead woman should be. Rebekah's not perfection, but she's here and she's real, and that works well enough for him.

Klaus knows, of course, but he doesn't say anything; merely looks smugger than usual the morning after, and every morning for a week after that. They've been sleeping together for ten days when he brings it up, oh-so-casually during a conversation; because of course he would.

"Remember Katerina, Rebekah?" he asks, and Damon wonders where the hell he's going with that.

"Damon here has been in love with her for a century and a half. Or was," he continues, and this time Damon actually says it, _what the hell you're doing?_, and get a knowing smile for an answer.

They're in the backroom of an expensive private club Klaus bought out the night before, having a drink and then a _drink_, and Rebekah looks as bored as Damon wishes he were.

"What is to me?" she says.

"Nothing, I simply thought you might appreciate the story. He'd loved her so much, did everything in his power to find her again, and ended up finding out she'd never even cared."

_It's okay to love them both_, Katherine said to Elena, but with her there was no way to tell what was the truth a what a lie; and he stopped caring a while ago. He shrug, and so does Rebekah.

"Katerina was a harlot," she says matter-of-factly, and Damon finds himself laughing like he hasn't done in a while.

"Yes, and_ that_ was one hell of a wakeup call," he tells Klaus. "What's the point of this conversation anyway?"

"Wait, but we haven't gotten to the best part yet," Klaus says, looking like a child at Christmas, and Damon starts feeling uneasy.

"You see, Bex," he continues, "Katherine never really loved him, but she so loved his brother. Poor Damon, all of his women end up in love his brother at some point. What a pity."

Hu turns his head and looks at him straight in the eyes; and that is when he delivers the last blow.

"In fact, Rebekah," Klaus says with a smile, eyes locked with Damon's the whole time. "I seem to remember you liked his brother a great deal, too. Don't you remember him, sister? Stefan?"

How does he manage to make a single name sound like a bullet Damon doesn't know, but suddenly Rebekah winces and he _knows_; and Klaus's still smiling.

"Sorry Damon," he mocks. "I think you lost this one, too."

* * *

**_A/N:_** In case you'd rather read it in order & can't be bothered making sense of Roman numerals, the parts in the story are 10-2-9-5-1-6-3-8-4-7


End file.
